Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/76

64 consciously or unconsciously, you lie in stating that you owed Edwin Lawrence nothing. You see this." He held out a small leather-covered volume, which was fastened by a lock. "I found it in his room after you had gone. It's a sort of diary—rather an unexpected volume for such a man to have—which statement is itself only another instance of the unwisdom of judging, on insufficient data, of the direction in which a man's tastes may be inclined. In it he appears to have made fairly regular entries, the last so lately as last night, after you had left him. Here it is:

"‘Have been playing cards with Ferguson, and winning pretty heavily. Have long been conscious that F.'s an unusual type of man—dangerous. The sort you would rather not have a row with. Felt it more than ever to-night; believe if he could have torn the heart clean out of me, without scandal, he would have done it then and there. A bad loser. He said some things, and looked more; as good as suggesting I had not played on the square. I did not break his head, but, though I only laughed, I did not love him any the more. It's eighteen hundred and eighty that he owes me. I suspect it will be like drawing his eye-teeth; but I'll have it. The money will be useful.'

"That is the last entry he made in his